Okay so I honestly don’t know how to start; that game was pretty awesome and I am mostly glad I drove back for it. That game had pretty much anything you could ask for, from penalties to ridiculous turnovers and a near fat guy pick-6. Both teams tried to gift wrap this game to the other and it happened in front of one of the biggest groups of recruits I have ever seen at Martin Stadium. From a fan perspective that game was absolutely the crazies thing in the world and it helps when you have great trolls like this;

I’ll say this several times throughout this post but that was the craziest game I’ve been at; it beats out the 2011 Dad’s Weekend Game versus ASU, and the 2006 Redskins at Seahawks Playoff game. This game honestly is best going to be best summed up by going to Bullet point form while it is still fresh in my mind. And it will allow me to communicate my thoughts more crisply so let us jump to it;

The refs were inconsistently bad as their definition of holding and pass interference was hard to make out as it changed from play-to-play, flag-to-flag. This is an issue that needs to be addressed and addressed soon by the Pac-12 front office.

The narrative on the West Side is going to be that the Huskies cost themselves this game but before you honestly buy into that I would like to point out that the Cougs turned the ball over four times and that three of those resulted in Husky TDs in the third quarter. Around the same time that the Huskies put up 21-points and turned a three-point deceit to an 18-point lead.

Both quarterbacks spent a significant amount of time sitting on the turf as their offensive lines seemed unable to block the defense; both O-lines gave up a combined seven sacks (three sacks by the Cougs and four by the Huskies). This is clearly going to be an area of emphasis in the recruiting strategies of the Sark’s and Leach’s respective staffs.

The Husky defense looked much improved over last season; it helps to nab someone of the talent level like Shaq Thompson. It looks like the youngest Trufant has become the Huskies version of Casey Locker in the fact that he is going to draw a lot of flags even though most of them won’t be deserved.

Martin Stadium got really, really, really loud. And that wasn’t just at the end it was pretty loud all game long. Even the Husky section was pretty loud considering how small it was; I think the lower field, the metal bleachers, and the low field all add up to make some interesting dynamics for noise. The press box/luxury seats trap a bunch of noise and it’s only going to get louder on the field when the football operation building goes in the east end zone.

Now OT actually gets a written paragraphed part thingy because it was really impressive and I’m the person writing this post and I damn well get to say what gets this or not. The fact that this game got to OT is still surprising to me even though I witnessed it in person and stormed the field it still doesn’t make sense to me. For the Cougs to overcome that 18 point deficit in 15 minutes was going to require a turnover and Price gift-wrapped one when he fumbled a hand off. And it got better when the Cougs were gift-wrapped a second attempt at a two-point conversion via a pass interference call. Then Furney hit a game-tying field goal, which was immediately followed by a botched field goal by Coons lead to overtime.

Overtime was when Martin Stadium got really loud and pretty much everybody ended up standing on their feet. The one thing I really can’t wrap my head around is why Keith Price tried to dump that pass instead of taking the sack. What resulted was one of the most disturbingly, beautiful plays in college football that I have ever seen. Toni Pole’s long rumble is something that will forever be seared into my memory and it would have been so epic and probably the coolest thing ever if he actually had managed to return the pick for a TD. But instead he gave the Cougs the ball back and five plays later the Cougar faithful were storming the field and celebrating a come from behind-upset-win.